Both a Cabinet version and a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) version of a draft Political Party Law (政黨法) delivered to the legislature’s Internal Administration Committee and the Judiciary, Organic Laws and Statutes Committee for assessment have raised concerns among the nation’s smaller parties.
Both versions stipulate that parties that have not held a congress in four years, have not complied with congressional deadlines set by the authorities, or have failed to nominate candidates for public office at county or city level or above, will be considered defunct. The KMT draft goes further by granting authorities the right to take disciplinary action by dissolving political parties.
Opponents claim the drafts contain possible violations of the Constitution and it has caused dissent from not only the pan-green camp, but also from pan-blue legislators who claim to have been unaware of its contents and say it is extremely inappropriate.
Many critics have lambasted the drafts for attempting to destroy smaller parties.
Jou Yi-cheng (周奕成), convener of the Third Society Party (第三社會黨), criticized the draft as unreasonable, saying that the public have the constitutional right to assemblage and no law that stipulates that parties must participate in elections at certain levels. He said parties could aim to serve the basic levels of society and only participate in township elections, and that it would be unreasonable to force these parties to disband.
While conceding that it would be reasonable to prevent parties that do not participate in elections from fund raising or enjoying tax benefits, Jou said that governing authorities do not and should not have the right to dissolve political parties.
Since parties can serve more functions than merely competing in elections and the four-year limit appears arbitrary, Jou said he felt that such legislation appeared to be aimed at forcing minor parties to disband.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator and member of the Internal Administration Committee, Chiu Yi-ying (邱議瑩), argued that the current system for legislative elections is already disadvantageous to smaller parties and further restrictions were not required.
KMT Legislator and convener of the Judiciary Committee, Lee Chia-chin (李嘉進), agreed that electoral participation was only one way for parties to express their political ideologies and that the government should not force all parties to participate. He said that he had not been aware that his party had proposed the draft and had been ignorant of its content.
Fast food chain McDonald's is to raise prices by up to NT$5 on some products at its restaurants across Taiwan, starting on Wednesday next week, the company announced today. The prices of all extra value meals and sharing boxes are to increase by NT$5, while breakfast combos and creamy corn soup would go up by NT$3, the company said in a statement. The price of the main items of those meals, if ordered individually, would remain the same. Meanwhile, the price of a medium-sized lemon iced tea and hot cappuccino would rise by NT$3, extra dipping sauces for chicken nuggets would go up
Yangmingshan National Park’s Qingtiangang (擎天崗) nature area has gone viral after a park livestream camera observed a couple in the throes of intimate congress, which was broadcast live on YouTube, drawing large late-night crowds and sparking a backlash over noise, bright lights and disruption to wildlife habitat. The area’s livestream footage appeared to show a couple engaging in sexual activity on a picnic table in the park on Friday last week, with the uncensored footage streamed publicly online. The footage quickly spread across social media, prompting a tide of visitors to travel to the site to “check in” and recreate the
Minister of Digital Affairs Lin Yi-ching (林宜敬) yesterday cited regulatory issues and national security concerns as an expert said that Taiwan is among the few Asian regions without Starlink. Lin made the remarks on Facebook after funP Innovation Group chief executive officer Nathan Chiu (邱繼弘) on Friday said Taiwan and four other countries in Asia — China, North Korea, Afghanistan and Syria — have no access to Starlink. Starlink has become available in 166 countries worldwide, including Ukraine, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, in the six years since it became commercial, he said. While China and North Korea block Starlink, Syria is not
GROUNDED: A KMT lawmaker proposed eliminating drone development programs and freezing funding for counterdrone systems, despite China’s adoption of the technology China has deployed attack drones at air bases near the Taiwan Strait in a strategy aimed at overwhelming Taiwan’s air defense systems through saturation attacks, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said. The council’s latest quarterly report on China said that satellite imagery and open-source intelligence indicate that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) had converted retired J-6 fighter jets into J-6W drones, which the PLA has stationed at six air bases near Taiwan, five in China’s Fujian Province and one in Guangdong Province. The report cited J. Michael Dahm, a senior fellow at the US-based Mitchell Institute, as saying that China has
RSS